The present invention relates to an electric seasoning mill capable of containing and dispensing two kinds of seasonings.
In order to preserve the original taste of various kinds of seasonings, seasonings are usually stored in larger particle sizes, and ground and directly dispensed with seasoning grinders when people want to use them.
A currently existing manual seasoning mill structure includes a hollow main body, a rotary operating member connected to an upper end of the hollow main body, a transmission shaft held in the main body and turnable together with the rotary operating member, an inner toothed part joined to a lower end of the transmission shaft, and an outer toothed part positioned around the inner toothed part and secured to an inner side of the main body. Seasonings are contained in the hollow main body. Thus, the inner toothed part will turn relative to the outer toothed part to grind seasonings together with the outer toothed part when the operating member is rotated.
However, it requires unwarranted time and labor to use the manual seasoning mill, and it is difficult for those people who can't use their hands very dexterously to operate such seasoning mills smoothly. Further, this prior art seasoning mill can contain only one kind of seasoning or one kind of seasoning combination instead of two.
Various electric seasoning grinders are available such as were disclosed in Patent CH675961A5, DE20215609U1, U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,625, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,734,417. The electric grinders include a motor, a grinding mechanism, a transmission shaft connected to both the motor and the grinding mechanism, and a switch for turning on/off the motor. However, these grinders aren't very practical because they can contain only one kind of seasoning or one kind of seasoning combination.
Although there are several different dual-use seasoning grinders available to consumers which have two separate rooms for containing two kinds of seasonings, and although these can grind the two kinds of seasonings separately (such as were disclosed in Patents/applications US2003/052207 A1, EP0876787A, and GB256378A,) they are hand-operated and not convenient to use.